Nintendo Told Disney How Bowser Should Hold His Teacup During Wreck-It Ralph Production

Wreck-It Ralph was a worldwide hit when it arrived in cinemas and much of its success can be attributed to the characters involved in the movie.

Obviously there was Ralph, Fix-It Felix and all their buddies, but there were also several cameos from a few members of gaming royalty.

Sonic the Hedgehog and his arch-nemesis Dr Eggman both made an appearance as did M. Bison and Zangief from Capcom's Street Fighter franchise.

Of course, it wouldn't be a movie about video games without including some Nintendo characters and although there was no Mario, Bowser was on hand to represent the Big N.

However, it wasn't all plain sailing for Disney as the movie's producer Clark Spencer revealed in an interview with Edge that Nintendo got in touch as it was unhappy about how Bowser was being used.

What was it that caused such a stir, you ask? Well, apparently the King of the Koopas was holding his cup of tea incorrectly:

We also got a comment back [from Nintendo] saying, ‘Bowser is holding his cup the wrong way; Bowser would hold his cup like this‘ – so we changed it accordingly.

It looks as though this was a bit of a storm in a teacup and we don't think Nintendo was too mad at Disney over the issue. Still, it shows just how much it cares about its characters, especially those from the Mushroom Kingdom.

Director Rich Moore has previously revealed he wanted Mario to be included in the movie but there was no "perfect moment" for him. If a sequel does get made, Moore said to expect to see the portly plumber in some capacity.

What did you think to Wreck-It Ralph? Was it your cup of tea? Let us know in the comments section below.

@yoshisaredragon pretty sure there were more than that, maybe I just didn't find any of the other jokes funny enough to count, I may have exaggerated, but you don't need to be rude just because I didn't like a movie you liked.

Nintendo is simply making sure their characters aren't introduced differently than what Nintendo envisions them to be. For the movie, Bowser was originally smaller, and Nintendo made sure to get that fixed.

Maybe instead of worrying about things like this Nintendo could, I don’t know, focus on releasing games for its latest console… or making sure that the thing doesn’t freeze on you during gameplay, forcing you to unplug the machine from the wall to turn it off. Just a thought.

@SirQuincealot: i don't mind sarah silverman in moderation, and i felt her voice was fitting for her character, but i remember being clueless as to why Vanellope's voice was so familiar until they hit that first 'doody' joke and it all kinda snapped into focus, lol. i wish they'd have left it out to be honest, it was a great movie and didn't need the toilet humor to get by. :3

@theblackdragon #33Have you watched the deleted scenes? The whole time I was thinking, "This was intended for a children's movie?" I think they fired whoever made those storyboards, because the story was tremendously different in them.

Funny how Nintendo (albeit politely) tells how Bowser should hold a tea cup now, but a few decades back they didn't make a big deal over the fact that Bowser was a freaking human in the deplorable (to put it nicely) Mario movie. Unless they did and I never knew, since that was all before my time mind you. In any case I guess things were different back then.

Eh, I haven't seen the movie. I may eventually, although I'm not really interested in doing so. One of my family might have it come via Netflix. But, from what I have seen from previews, & stuff, I didn't think I'd really like it.

@Grimbldoo: That honestly makes me somewhat wonder what deleted scenes are in, or rather, were going to be in, other Pixar movies.

Well, if I had a multimillion valued character and I lend it for a movie, the heck I would be very picky about how they treat him. Also it seems there were polite about it so, yeah Nintendo cares about its characters, everyone should.

I did like the movie, though the Spanish dubbing was not very good. I had to wait for the DVD release to watch it English, it was better.

Also never noticed Bowser had a teacup. I can only imagine how much Nintendo will be on their backs when Mario and/hopefully Luigi are in the sequel, as they should be. But my dissapointment came from the fact that Eggman had no speaking line whatsoever!

I loved this movie enough to buy the blu ray version day 1. I disagree with Twilight_Crow as I enjoyed the Latin American dub with Maria Antonieta de las Nieves (La Chilindrina) as Vanellope. What I did not like about it was that they did not translate the Sugar Rush names, particularly King Candy. Since that was the only version they projected here, it was until I got the disc that I watched the original English dub. I like them both tbh.

I also loved how the cameos never drive the movie. And how respectful they were with the developer's whims about the characters included.

Huh. That's interesting to find out. I'll have to watch again - I missed Bowser holding a teacup. And I still can't seem to find the "Sonic the Fighters" arcade machine...

Oh yeah, I'm also a tad ticked that Disney decided to put all the deleted scenes and other good crap on the Blue-Ray version exclusively. I mean, it can't be that much more data that they couldn't fit in on a DVD. But, I guess that's how money rackets work.

I seriously doubt Nintendo was actually worried about it. It was probably more of a lighthearted thing. Considering how he holds it in the final film (very daintily), it's possible the original had him holding it more rough and clumsy like.

Yeah, sheesh this IS old news. The good thing is it looks like MOST everyone on here is mature enough to not be surprised or incredulous about this. The same probably could be said about how Sega felt about Sonic and Robotnic's portrayal. Some people don't know that pretty much every flagship character (from pretty much any form of media - games, movie, cartoon, TV) has a "bible" that specifically outlines what they can or can't do, etc. I know Sonic had one when I was with them in '91. Some companies are pretty free with how their characters are portrayed (like Capcom and their Street Fighter Characters) as long as they are in a positive light. And some aren't. No biggie. Disney would do the same thing with Mickey too!

The thing we DON'T know is how he was holding the cup before-hand. Did he have his pinky out? If I were Nintendo, I'd definitely have an issue with that. LOL!

BTW, this is hands-down one of my favorite Disney movies (if not THE). And it is arguably THE best video game inspired movie ever created. If you haven't seen it... what are you waiting for?!

Dang, surprised so many people liked this film. It wasn't horrible but never got very good or rather didn't get past mildly entertaining. I did however love the villain, stinks the villain wasn't used well though. The pun jokes were the best humor but they were few and far between. The light potty jokes weren't the problem.

And wasn't Mario talked about in the film? Felix talked about him being late to the party. That counts as a cameo for me unless he said someone else.

This makes a heck of a lot of sense, actually, considering that Nintendo has had some soul searching to do after long nights of tossing and turning over some heinous mistake ridden decisions they have made in the past about lending out their star characters to third party companies. The Super Mario Super Show, the Legend of Zelda cartoon, the Super Mario Brothers the Movie, Super Mario CD-i, Zelda CD-i, need I go on?? It's no wonder why Nintendo crossed it's fingers and held it's breath over even the tiniest of matters! I was actually surprised they even let Bowser in, and even had a mention of Mario! You can also see two characters that look similar to Peach and Daisy in the background in some point or another, although they're obviously not the same characters.

In any case, here's some food for thought; when was the last time Bowser was ever in an arcade game? There was an arcade version of Super Mario Brothers arcade game in the 80's, but none anymore. Does that mean Bowser was unplugged and currently homeless?